Gee, climate change must affect reading comprehension too. I did not say the crews were not doing their job. I said that they were there more because of politics and public outcry than for being able to do much. You cannot put out a large fire when it is crowining out and being pushed by a strong wind. Air support cannot fly in a nasty wind. Air support cannot fly when the smoke is thick. Crews cannot be put in harm's way. That fire was ripping and was stopped by the snow. End of story. Lots of money made by contractors, lots of OT and hazard for crews.

Originally, the Park Service had planned to let the fire creep around and let nature do what nature does, but the public outcry was heard by the politicians, and the fire grew. Maybe you can find the TV special that was done on it. I am thinking it was National Geographic, but it may have been Nature or Nova.

--------------What's especially fun about sock puppets is that you can make each one unique and individual, so that they each have special characters. And they don't have to be human––animals and aliens are great possibilities

The Big Fire is quite an interesting story and I think I read where you had posted it before.

Yeah.. I posted it in the "Let's burn all the trees!" thread several years ago, along with links to several other papers which provide detailed information regarding the use of fire by Native Americans, something which you apparently are willfully choosing to ignore or discount the significance of because it doesn't fit your narrative.

I didn't ignore that at all. The paper of this thread clearly delineates that effect and settlers also set fires as the author pointed out.

.... and grossly underemphasizes the impact native American tribal burning had on the landscape over a period of at least 12000 years, during which the "climate" evolved and changed considerably (i.e., the west coast, from about Mendocino north, had a much drier, warmer climate 5000 years ago than it's had during the last few millennia.)

--------------"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."

If you think the problem isn't global warming but past fire management, you need go no further than the increase in fire acreage burned in the boreal forests of Western Canada where management and control of fires was not historically done. They're seeing the same increase. And then, of course, there is the 6 million acre wildfire in Alaska in around 2004.....it wasn't apparently controlled because it threatened no human populations

The situation is certainly complex. As a gross amateur (history and English teacher) I have "heard" the the Arctic and northern regions generally are warming much more than other areas of the world. So it is reasonable to qualify any data and consider other uncontrolled factors. For instance, if the northern boreal is warming at 4 times the rate of Washington forests (totally making that up for argument's sake) and they are experiencing a roughly comparable rate of increase in acres burned, we immediately ask why they are not in sync based on the rate of increased warming. But would a fourfold increase in temperature lead to a fourfold increase in acres burned with no anthropogenic pressure? Almost certainly NO, right? So how would we control for this?

How could we really know for sure on that data point? How can we quantify the effectiveness of fire suppression? I would argue that we absolutely cannot say what would have happened to a fire without human intervention. I simply do not believe that we can know the answer to that question.

.... and grossly underemphasizes the impact native American tribal burning had on the landscape over a period of at least 12000 years, during which the "climate" evolved and changed considerably (i.e., the west coast, from about Mendocino north, had a much drier, warmer climate 5000 years ago than it's had during the last few millennia.)

Right. But we don't have a way to meaningfully compare two different forest ecosystems when one is actively managed to an unknowable degree. And the boreal forest is a different beast, with a 100-300 year fire cycle. No trees older then 300 years anywhere in the north. Meaning comparisons of forests with profoundly different non-anthropogenic fire cycles is complicated before you even attempt to control anthropogenic factors.

Right. But we don't have a way to meaningfully compare two different forest ecosystems when one is actively managed to an unknowable degree. And the boreal forest is a different beast, with a 100-300 year fire cycle. No trees older then 300 years anywhere in the north. Meaning comparisons of forests with profoundly different non-anthropogenic fire cycles is complicated before you even attempt to control anthropogenic factors.

Climate change models (something like 50 of them I believe) all show changes in weather patterns with certain areas more likely to get drier even as, because of relative humidity and temperature, the total amount of rainfall should increase globally.

And in the Northwest it should be clear that there is a seasonal aspect that has shown up for the past thirty years with heavy (on average) winter snowpack above a certain elevation but still pretty severe drought by mid to late summer. Peltoms data on NW glaciers confirms this and you can look at the history of snowpack at Mt. Rainier National Park. Personally, the first year I was sure of the trend of NW glaciers was 1986.

Finally Gov Moonbeam lays off with the hokum and does something useful...

Quote:

Faced with the worst summer fire season in 10 years, Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing broad new changes to California’s logging rules that would allow landowners to cut larger trees and build temporary roads without obtaining a permit as a way to thin more forests across the state.

The proposal — which has the support of the timber industry but is being opposed by more than a dozen environmental groups — would represent one of the most significant changes to the state’s timber harvesting rules in the past 45 years.

The legislative session ends for the year next Friday. On Thursday, the details were still being negotiated by legislative leaders and the governor’s office behind the scenes and had not yet been formally introduced in a bill or put up for a vote.

“They are trying to get to some kind of a deal,” said Rich Gordon, the president of the California Forestry Association, a timber industry group. “They are looking at what can get done politically.”

Under Brown’s proposal, private landowners would be able to cut trees up to 36 inches in diameter — up from the current 26 inches — on property of 300 acres or less without getting a timber harvest permit from the state, as long as their purpose was to thin forests to reduce fire risk. They also would be able to build roads of up to 600 feet long without getting a permit, as long as they repaired and replanted them.

You have to be aspecial sort of stupid to deny the climate is changing and the fires are one result.

Nope, it is wrong to claim that climate change is THE cause of all forest fires. It 'taint so. Otherwise, we'd never have had fires in the past. The fire dependent species would not exist.

--------------What's especially fun about sock puppets is that you can make each one unique and individual, so that they each have special characters. And they don't have to be human––animals and aliens are great possibilities

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